Farewell, my friends, I'm bound for Canaan
I'm trav'ling through the wilderness;
Your company has been delightful
You, who doth leave my mind distressed.
I go away, behind to leave you
Perhaps never to meet again
But if we never have the pleasure
I hope we'll meet on Canaan's land.

October 10, 2004

The Dubya Code

... or, "Steward's Folly" ...

Oh, we should have know better.

But no, the Confidence Man, smug in his cosmopolitan, secular-humanist aspect, misread the situation entirely.

We said, once upon a time, that Bush's use of the term "steward" in regard to his role in despoiling the environment was merely silly and aggravating.

But when Bush conspicuously used the term again in the same context in the second debate, we realized that perhaps there was something more to it.

Man's relationship to the world is that of a steward, not that of an owner. ... This basic perspective - that the creation serves man, but that man is bound to use the creation as a steward - is filled out in detail throughout Scripture. ... private property is basic to a Biblical view of economics ... Private property rights set up boundaries that stewards have an interest in guarding. Without property rights, there are no boundaries to guard, and environmental catastrophes are more likely.